The Jharkhand government has decided to move the Supreme Court against a high court directive cancelling the ongoing recruitment of high school teachers for 17,572 vacancies based on a 2016 policy that reserves all class III and IV government jobs in 13 scheduled districts for local applicants.

At Project Building on Wednesday night, Hemant’s comment to reporters was brief. “We have decided to approach the Supreme Court against the high court ruling on teacher’s recruitment.” But sources close to the chief minister confirmed that the state advocate general Rajiv Ranjan and his team had been asked to begin the legal formalities.

Delivering a judgment through video conferencing on Monday, a full bench of Jharkhand High Court comprising justices H.C. Mishra, S. Chandrashekhar and Deepak Roshan scrapped the recruitment based on the 2016 policy calling it as violation of fundamental rights.

“The state is already facing problems of joblessness, besides other collateral challenges in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Cancellation of appointment of thousands of teachers and stalling of the process would aggravate the situation and lead to further unrest. The government is treading cautiously to find a way out,” said an official, unwilling to be named.

The BJP government headed by former chief minister Raghubar Das came up with the recruitment policy in 2016. It was notified by the Jharkhand Governor. Under the policy, all class III and IV government jobs in 13 scheduled districts were reserved for locals while in non-scheduled districts it was open to all.

After the policy was notified in mid-2016, the Das government floated an advertisement for recruitment of 17,572 high school teachers. Of these, the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) has so far recruited 9,000 people in both scheduled and non-scheduled districts.

Subsequently, the government also filled thousands of other vacancies in departments such as police, forests, etc. The high court order has now put a question mark on the fate of all those who have secured jobs.

Das has, however, defended the 2016 recruitment policy. On Tuesday, he described the recruitment policy as pro-tribal and pro-moolvasi and accused the Hemant Soren government of acting out of political vendetta in not defending it convincingly in court.

The former chief minister also advised the Hemant government to move the Supreme Court against the ruling. Hemant and his party, the JMM, however, criticised Das and his BJP government for shoddy drafting of a policy that had perpetuated chao. He also asked Das to accept responsibility for the turn of events that has left thousands jobless overnight.